Monday, December 24, 2007

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

no phone, no pool, no pets

So yesterday we didn't have water and our phone is dead. Nothing like being in the dark ages.

They just got the pump fixed, and the telephone company drove in two minutes ago. :)

It's been a busy week! My birthday was good. I went caroling for the ministers that night. Tuesday Mom, Donna, and I went to the W-ton Christmas house walk. It was pretty cool and I got to go in one of the houses that I drool over every time I drive past. It's over 100 years old and decorated very Victorian. I liked it a lot.

Katie had "the girls that used to hang out together in bible class" plus Heather B. over for pizza and good times on Wednesday. They're so fun- I wish I could see them all more often. Thursday Carli and I had our birthday party at Grandma's.

Last night was Vicki's caroling- my favorite caroling ever! We sing for one of her former patients and at the Motherhouse. The Nun's are always so cute. I was standing by Layne and we found it pretty humorous to be singing songs by Martin Luther to catholic nuns...

Scott and Ned showed up late last night after I was asleep. :)
We're going to Gridley today.

Blessings.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

sunday school and a lone aztec

Heidi conned me into helping her teach Sunday school this morning. *grin* But it was actually kind of fun. We had no idea what we were doing. Thankfully, it was third grade and we only had 4 kids and they were all well behaved little angels. It only took about 10 minutes to read the story and do the workbook page.... so we played bible trivia for 40 minutes. I discovered that I don't have a very good idea of what third graders know. Eh, O well. :)

My fam went to Sol Azteca in W-ton for supper. It's kind of like Dos, but not as brightly colored and they don't play mariachi music... which is sad. Still, they have really good Mexican food. I'm craving salsa and eggs and tortillas now though.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I have to work. And then my sister has a chorus concert. And I'm going carolling with the YG. Hooray for birthdays close to Christmas. I'm sooo old. I think I should start lying about my age. Hehe.

9 days til Christmas and 15 days til I'm off court supervision!!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

o holy night

We had a pretty small crowd at nursing home singing tonight. There were 14ish of us. But, as someone said, we had "enough mediocre singers to not sound bad." It's a good thing old people are hard of hearing. :)

It was actually really enjoyable- I would much rather sing with a smaller group that cares than with 50 or so that are more interested in talking to their neighbor than singing to the residents.

We sang O Holy Night as the last song... I think they just like to hear me screeching in my vain attempts at that high A...

So earlier my sister and her crazy friends were filming this scene for their class project... a WWII wife gets the news that her husband is dead... it was really touching until the part where the "Officer" *cough* Joy H. *cough* said, "the armed forces is sorry for your loss- have a nice day! O wait! That's not right!" Mom and I lost it... as did the other girls... we were all cracking up laughing.

Blessings

2 days til my birthday, 10 days til Christmas, and 16 days til I'm off court supervision!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Springerle

Tonight I made Springerle. They smell soooo good... it's too bad that they end up as "flavored styrofoam" (according to my brothers). O well, I like them. :D And they are fun to make! I have some pretty sweet molds- one from my Grandma, and a bunch were Christmas/birthday gifts. My favorite is my limited edition Lord of the Rings mold. It has two little hobbits gazing into Mordor at the Eye and Mt. Doom. Jakey made it for me a few years ago... I'm still waiting for more molds in the series...

Shelly is doing a movie about WWII for school, so we turned the basement into a circa 1940's kitchen. Last weekend it was an army hospital. It looks cool- we have my grandma's old stove (c. 1950), a whole set of enamel cookware in red and a set in black, a cute floral print apron, and some really fun cherry red no-sew curtains. :D

I really want to go see the nutcracker... but it's too late for this year... and so I think I'm going shopping with Clayton instead. woot.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Its starting to feel like Christmas

It's been a full weekend... and very fun!

We hosted the yg Christmas party at our house on Friday, and then the yg babysat on Saturday night. The Christmas party was great fun even though our house was sooo full and hot. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The "Littlest Elf" was hilarious.... I didn't get any pictures though. And the gift exchange was pretty good... doing a white elephant exchange removes all of the awkward "O, this is really cute (with a very fake smile)." We have some very creative people and they brought some crazy stuff. Some of it stayed at our house...

Babysitting wasn't bad. I was in charge of the kitchen so I didn't have to deal with keeping 30 out-of-control kidlets occupied. They didn't even make too much of a mess at supper.


Dad in his tux and Shelly
Somehow we fed 40 people in our living room and dining room
Somebody brought some old seed corn caps

Ty got a tiara
Tony got a quacking duck
Kate models a Pioneer hat
We finally got a tree since the party's over and we have room. Woot!

8 days til my birthday, 16 days til christmas, and 22 days til I'm off court supervision!

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

I'm busy

getting ready for the yg christmas party friday and yg babysitting on saturday. woot!


I love the mail. (Post Offices too!) You'll never guess what I got the other day....hehe.


12 days til my birthday, 20 days til christmas, and 26 days til I'm off court supervision!!

Sunday, December 02, 2007

the best laid plans...

So this weekend I was planning on going up to Elgin for Natalie's baptism. But then that crazy storm came through. Our road was like glass... and it was worse up north, so I decided not to go on Saturday night. Probably a good thing, but really disappointing. So instead, I sewed a skirt that Matt thinks is ugly.

It warmed up over night and everything melted- which is crazy, I thought it got colder at night. Matt and I and Kevin K. decided to go this morning. We left really really early; ok, maybe it was only 7am, but still! The roads were all clear and dry and except for some overturned vehicles and downed power lines and branches you wouldn't know there had been an ice storm. We passed a bunch of utility trucks heading north-somebody didn't have power.

It was good to be there. It's been a while and its always a fun place. Nat was pretty disappointed that people couldn't make it because of the weather... so I'm really glad we went.

Both my passengers were out for most of the way home... I think it must be me. Am I really that boring? O well. I got to listen to my choice of music. :)

15 more days til my birthday, 23 days til Christmas, and 29 days til I'm off court supervision!!! Woot.